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Frozen Synapse

I have always been a huge fan of the turn based tactical isometric games such as Jagged Alliance, JA2, Xcom..etc..  For whatever reason that style of meticulous gameplay always appealed to me, but I had always assumed I was alone in my passion because those games never seemed to last very long in favor of first person shooters or real time strategy games..etc..

In fact, the industry as a whole has completely moved away from turn based game play, which I find to be a shame. Well thank god there are awesome independent developers around to fill the void!

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Red Faction: Armageddon

I played Red Faction back in 2001 when it first came out and enjoyed the heck out of it.   It was the very first game to come out with the Geo-Mod game engine which allowed for massive destruction of the game models and levels.   The game itself was otherwise unremarkable, but the fact that you could destroy everything made it awesome.

I find it funny that one little thing like that can make or break a game entirely, and the massively destructable nature of the Red Faction games entirely “makes” these titles.

Red Faction II was one of those games that came out only a year or so later but it managed to skip my notice and the series sorta fell off my radar.

The other day I picked up the latest in the franchise; Red Faction: Armageddon.   And I’m glad to say that it’s up to the original games standards in all ways .. to include the shortcomings..

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Dragon Age II

So in my Dragon Age review I began by asking “Can Bioware do no wrong?”   Apparently the answer is “Yes.”

I had originally mocked Bioware in my first review for taking 4 years to produce the first game.. Now suddenly that didn’t seem like such a bad idea, as Dragon Age II (DA2) the supposed successor, was rushed out the door in just over 8 months and it shows.  DA2 just doesn’t compare to Dragon Age – Origins (DA:O).

Now I realize that I’m giving the impression that I didn’t think DA2 was a good game, that’s not the case.. I think it was a good game by itself, but it just didn’t meet up with the expectations nor match the precedent that was set with DA:O.

So, I want to say that Yes, DA2 is a good game on its own merits.   But if you go in expecting DA:O version two, you’re going to be disappointed.

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So in a fit of boredom last night I downloaded an indy game off Steam called “NightSky” for the low price of $9.

What a great game!  Extremely simple in concept, elegantly produced with a level of depth and complexity that a lot of modern big company games fail to match.

In NightSky the player controls a glowing sphere that they found on the beach through a nighttime shadowed series of mazes and puzzles.  You have limited and often changing control over the sphere, but most of the time you can accelerate and decelerate the sphere, make it go super fast or have a sticky like brake.  In some cases you can even invert gravity and in others there are pinball like flippers.  Fun!

The goal is to use the physics engine and your limited controls to guide the sphere through all of the different worlds which are divided into a number of three-screen sections with each section containing a challenge or puzzle.

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Tiger II

When I heard a buddy of mine tell me that he was playing a game called “World of Tanks” I thought he was kidding.. I thought he was making some reference to “tanking” in World of Warcraft or something.. But no, he was serious..

Who on Earth would name their game this?! Well.. Apparently Wargaming.net and BigWorld Technology that’s who..

World of Tanks is a real first person shooter style game currently in open beta in which you get to drive tanks, tank destoyers and/or self propelled guns around fairly large maps all with the goal of mass destruction, mayhem and general killing of your fellow man.  Booyah!  Who wouldn’t like that right?

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Greed Corp

I have always liked turn based strategy games.. They used to be “the” game genre, but over the years as time and technology has marched forward they have largely started to decline in  favor of more real time strategy games and first person shooters.

So when W!Games introduced Greed Corp a modern turn based strategy game with a very clever land collapsing mechanic to the PC late last year, I was pretty excited..  This was the first I had heard of it even though the  PS3 and XBox players had access to it since last February.  I don’t follow the console games market at all so it was completely new to me.

I have to admit I really like it.. The best part about this game is that it’s actually a game.. Meaning it focuses on game play not wizbang special effects or graphics..  I really feel that this is a shining example of good game design and salute the W!Games folks.

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